nevieve stood almost within arm's-length
of them. He met her gaze, and immediately pushed the girl out towards
her.

"Listen, Belle," he said. "It is all right. Here is Jenny waiting for
you. She understands."

Gowan, watching rigid and tense-lipped, with his hand clenched on the
hilt of his half-drawn Colt's, was astonished to see Mrs. Blake step
forward and clasp Isobel in her arms. But Ashton did not see the
strange act that checked the puncher's vengeful shot. While the girl
was yet clinging to Blake, he had turned and fled along the edge of
the ravine, for the moment stark mad with rage and despair.

He rushed off without a cry, and the others were themselves far too
surcharged with emotion to heed his going until he had disappeared
around a turn in the ravine. When at last, almost spent with exertion,
he staggered up a ridge to glare back at those from whom he had fled,
his bloodshot eyes could perceive only three figures on the brink of
the gorge. They were kneeling to look over into the ravine.

His thoughts were still in a wild whirl, but the heat of his mad rage
had passed and left him in a cold fury. He instantly comprehended that
Blake had swung over the edge and was descending the rope down the
almost sheer face of the ravine wall.

Now was the time! A touch of a knife-edge to the rope, and the girl
would be saved. Would Gowan think of it?... Of course he would
think of it. But he would not do it. He would leave the deed to be
done by the man to whom he had relinquished Miss Chuckie. It was
for that man to save her--to destroy the tempter and break the
spell of fascination that was drawing her over the brink of a pit
far deeper than any earthly canyon. He, Lafayette Ashton--not
Gowan--was the man. He must save her--down there in the depths, where
no eye could see.

[Transcriber's Note: Map of High Mesa and Dry Mesa with place of
descent and other landmarks shown appears here.]

CHAPTER XXV

THE DESCENT INTO HELL

Dangling like a spider on its thread, with a twist of the rope
around one of his legs, Blake had gone down into the ravine, hand
under hand, with the agility of a sailor. The tough leather of his
chapareras prevented the rope from chafing the leg around which it
slipped, and he managed with his free foot to fend himself off from
the sharp-cornered ledges of the cliff side. In this he was less
concerned for himself than for his level, which he carried in a sling,
high up between